Field of the Invention
This invention relates to optical cable assemblies. More particularly, the invention relates to an optical fiber furcation tube with improved strength characteristics and/or ease of use.
Description of Related Art
The wireless communications industry is changing from traditional signal delivery from ground based transceivers delivering/receiving the RF signal to/from the antenna atop the radio tower via bulky/heavy/high material cost metal RF coaxial cable to optical signal delivery to a tower top mounted transceiver known as a remote radio unit (RRU) or remote radio head (RRH) with implementation of fiber to the antenna (FTTA) cabling.
Optical conductors of FTTA cabling may be fragile, requiring great care to properly terminate.
Prior RRU/RRH terminations have employed an over-voltage protection and/or distribution box for terminating each of the optical conductors as individual jumpers. These additional enclosures require field termination of the several conductors atop the radio tower, increasing installation time and labor requirements. Further, each break in the conductors provides another opportunity for signal degradation and/or environmental fouling.
Factory terminated cable assemblies are known. However, these assemblies may apply splices to the conductors, require a relatively large in-line break-out/splice enclosure and/or utilize environmental seals which fail to positively interlock the jumpers therewith, which may increase the potential for cable and/or individual conductor damage to occur.
Furcation tubes may be applied to fibers and or fiber bundles stripped back from the cable end to protect the optical fibers from damage between the cable and the optical fiber termination. Prior optical fiber furcation tubes typically consist of an inner polymer tube surrounded by a para-aramid synthetic fiber sheath, or a para-aramid synthetic fiber sheath alone. Further, it may be labor intensive to prepare the furcation tube for interconnection and/or to thread an optical fiber through a furcation tube.
Therefore, an object of the invention is to provide an optical conductor furcation tube solution that overcomes deficiencies in the prior art.